


The Last Frontier

by manic_intent



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, That sci fi AU where Billy is a runaway cyborg and Goodnight gets pulled in by accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 13:10:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8668813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: The sound of someone pounding on his door was so novel that for a whole minute, shocked awake in bed, Goodnight hadn’t known where the sound was coming from. Staring up at the ceiling, Goodnight blinked owlishly as the sound ebbed, then he yelped and nearly fell out of bed as the muffled thumping sound started up all over again. Hurriedly pulling on a nightrobe and stumbling out of bed, he staggered over to the door and thumbed it open, just in time for Emma’s raised fist to smack against his jaw. “Sorry! Sorry!” Emma hissed, as Goodnight winced and rubbed his mouth and squinted at her blearily. She shoved past him, looking sharply around his apartment. “Right. It’s clear. C’mon in. Close up behind you.”“Wait a minute,” Goodnight protested, even as someone glided into the apartment and swiped the door closed behind them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> oops my hand slipped

The sound of someone pounding on his door was so novel that for a whole minute, shocked awake in bed, Goodnight hadn’t known where the sound was coming from. Staring up at the ceiling, Goodnight blinked owlishly as the sound ebbed, then he yelped and nearly fell out of bed as the muffled thumping sound started up all over again. Hurriedly pulling on a nightrobe and stumbling out of bed, he staggered over to the door and thumbed it open, just in time for Emma’s raised fist to smack against his jaw. 

“Sorry! Sorry!” Emma hissed, as Goodnight winced and rubbed his mouth and squinted at her blearily. She shoved past him, looking sharply around his apartment. “Right. It’s clear. C’mon in. Close up behind you.”

“Wait a minute,” Goodnight protested, even as someone glided into the apartment and swiped the door closed behind them. Slender and petite, the stranger was dressed unprepossessingly in a simple gray tunic and breeches, his face completely hidden in a opaque black helmet. Emma was all in black, her own helmet tucked under one arm, and with a sinking heart, Goodnight recognised the faint shimmer on her form-fitting gear for what it was.

“Pretty sure cham-gear is illegal this side of the Belt,” he told her, with a frown. “The hell are you doing here?” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Emma tipped out the chair hinged under his desk and sank down on it, visibly exhausted. “I wouldn’t have come here if I had a choice. I’ll be gone soon, too. I just need a favour.” 

“Does this involve rogue droids again?” Before Emma could reply, Goodnight jerked his thumb at the stranger. “You gave him clothes but forgot the shoes. Nobody Beltside goes barefoot in public except droids.” Getting caught without automag boots during a gravity failure was generally a disaster—for a human, anyway. 

“He’s a service droid,” Emma said earnestly. “Sam and I are working on a way to get him offworld. Just. Our broker hasn’t really come through yet, so I need someplace to stash him for a few days. He’ll stay out of your way, I promise.” 

“Inbuilt tracker?”

“Deactivated.” 

Goodnight let out a gusty sigh, rubbing a hand slowly up over his face. “Emma. This is a really bad idea,” he began patiently, then trailed off as the droid in question took off his helmet. 

And. _Hell_. Back when Goodnight had been an operative, he’d busted his share of meat shops, synth and mix and everything in between. All the black market hacks had been trying to dream up their idea of perfection for _years_ , running from the downright goddamned fucked up to gorgeous Madonnas and still. Goodnight had never seen anyone—anything—this gorgeous. His maker must’ve been some kinda genius splicer, bent on making a masterpiece. There was Asian stock as a base gene, giving him a fine-boned appearance and intense, dark eyes, a delicate mouth and thick dark hair bound loosely in a tail. But where the stillness in other droids always reminded Goodnight of death and the dead, here it gave way to a sense of catlike grace, instead, of economical poise. 

Wow.

He might’ve said that out loud. Emma sniffed. “Hacks have come a big way since you walked the beat, Angel.” 

Goodnight flushed, always disoriented by the reminder. The droid narrowed his eyes, very slightly, but said nothing. “What uh, kinda _service droid_ are we talkin’ about here?” 

“Bit obvious, ain’t it?” Emma smirked, but she sobered up right quick. “All right. I’m going to have to head out. Leave a few false trails. I’ll be back in a couple of days. A week, max. His name is ‘Billy’, okay? Bye. Thanks!” 

“Wait!” Goodnight tried to make a grab for Emma’s wrist, but she’d wriggled past, scanning the door open. Goodnight briefly considered ducking out after her, chasing her down, but if Emma activated her suit outside his apt, there’d be no point. He closed up after her instead, glumly, then turned reluctantly to Billy. 

“So uh.” He cleared his throat. “My name’s—”

“It’s best that I don’t know your name,” Billy said calmly, and when Goodnight stared at him, he mimed passing a scanner against his temple. Right. _Right_. “If I am here as an artserv for a few days, I will act the part.” Hell, even Billy’s _voice_ was beautiful, a pleasant, faintly accented baritone. 

Artserv. _Artificial Servant_. Goodnight grimaced again, rubbed a palm over his face, then stared glumly at his unmade bed. “Right. Uh. How about you make me some coffee, and I’ll. Go use the bathroom.” 

“Very well, sir.” There was a strange, faint curl to Billy’s mouth, but then it was gone, and Billy turned to study Goodnight’s tiny kitchenette, which was Goodnight’s first clue, sadly, that things were possibly about to get worse. 

“Wow,” Goodnight said afterwards, as they disposed of the cups in the trash hatch. “I really didn’t think it was possible to burn coffee with an automaker. Aren’t you a service droid?” 

Billy stared unblinkingly at him. “Of course,” he said. “My programming may have been incompatible. Please accept my apology for any… inconvenience caused.” Was that insincerity? Was it _possible_ for a droid to feel insincere? Goodnight wavered. Then he exhaled. 

“Nevermind. Just. Sit quietly and, Emma will come back for you soon and… nevermind.” 

Billy nodded curtly, and folded himself gracefully into a chair. He didn’t sit like droids did—most droids simply lowered themselves straight-backed onto a chair, giving merely the semblance of sitting: if you moved the chair away, their joints and circuitry would often still keep them upright. Billy _lounged_ , imperiously. His back was propped against the prefab wall, one arm slung against the tiny desk, propped against Goodnight’s books. 

“If I might ask,” Goodnight said slowly, still blindsided, “which company made you? Santo? Yelon?” 

There wasn’t much legal demand for completely human-like droids nowadays, not after the Andromeda War, but Goodnight couldn’t imagine something as perfect as Billy coming out of a black market op. Billy said nothing, and a little unnerved, Goodnight repeated his question, wondering if there’d been another malfunction. 

Still nothing. “Billy,” Goodnight tried again. “Did you just understand what I said?” 

There was a pause, then Billy said mildly, “You told me to sit quietly.” 

“Oh. Right. Well uh, I…” Goodnight trailed off, incredulous, as Billy’s lip curled faintly. Amusement? Was that _amusement_? He strode over, suddenly suspicious, and grabbed Billy by the wrist on the desk, trying to lift it to see the faint shimmer that was the nanocode stamped onto any droid’s arm, but it was like trying to move something bolted to a wall. Tugging actually shifted himself _towards_ Billy. 

Billy arched an eyebrow, and Goodnight let go of him, embarrassed. “Sorry. Just checkin’,” Goodnight said. Billy was definitely a droid: his skin had that feverish temperature, machine-warmth. 

“Whether I’m a robot?” Billy asked, and smiled lazily. This wasn’t the imitation mouth-curl of a normal droid—like a real human, Billy’s skin stretched, his eyes crinkling a little at the corners, though they stayed carefully blank. 

“Yeah. It’s just. You’re not what I’m used to,” Goodnight admitted. 

Billy chuckled, and even _that_ sounded uncomfortably human. “I wouldn’t think so.” 

“You’ve got a positronic brain. Don’t you?” Goodnight asked, rubbing his hand over his face again. “Jesus. The hell is Emma up to _now_? And who the hell’s been violatin’ the Asimov Act?” 

No one was meant to be creating positronic droids any longer, let alone ones that were obviously _self-aware_. All modern droids after the Andromeda Wars were little more than extension limbs of large computer programs, tasked with simple directives like city maintenance or security assistance. Mankind had promptly gone from banding together against rogue droids to fighting each other again over galactic resources, of course. Business-as-fucking-usual. 

‘Course, it didn’t stop people like Sam and Emma from trying to locate and protect the few remaining positronics out there, out of guilt or self-righteousness or whatever it was. The Foundation, they called themselves. But Goodnight had met and terminated his share of droids over the war, and “Billy” here was something else. Something new. 

Billy smiled, and said nothing. Early positronics were inbuilt with the Laws, which would have required them to respond honestly to any human questioning. Late ones, modified by other rogue droids in the war, would still have responded, albeit usually to decline. This silence—this _amused_ silence—was unnerving. 

“All right,” Goodnight said uncomfortably. “I’m just. Gonna catch a few more hours’ shut-eye.” Billy inclined his head. Still unnerved, Goodnight folded up back in the cot and tried to sleep, hyper-aware that he wasn’t alone. It was going to be a long night.

#

Despite Goodnight’s conviction that it was all going to go wrong, arrests-and-shootouts sort of wrong, nothing of the sort happened. Billy even somehow settled into Goodnight’s routine with subtle efficiency. It had taken a day of mishaps before Billy had gotten the hang of the appliances in the apt, or even the notion of cleaning and tidying, but after that, he was quiet, unobtrusive, and seemed happy to sit quietly in a corner when not working, eyes closed.

Goodnight, though, had just gotten more and more curious. Especially since Emma and Sam had both gone completely off-grid. But Billy deflected all his questions with silence, and after a day or so, Goodnight gave up. His guest was polite, never got underfoot, and besides… he sure as hell was beautiful to look at. It was hard not to stare, hard not to think of what kinda ‘service’ needed a droid with a face that was this perfect, hard not to wonder if the rest of Billy had been crafted with the same degree of virtuoso. Made for better dreams, anyway, though the bad ones still came. 

One night he woke with fingers curled over his shoulders, shaking him awake, and Goodnight gasped as he struggled against the grip, flailing for a moment before he caught himself. Billy stared down at him soberly, waiting until Goodnight calmed down before he let go. “You were shouting,” Billy explained mildly. “In your sleep.”

“Yeah. Uh.” Goodnight ran fingers through his sweat-soaked hair, and Billy got up from the bed to fetch a glass of water. Goodnight drank, sitting up against the wall, still shaky. “Sorry about that.” 

“I am here as a guest,” Billy said dismissively.

“Exactly. Can’t be fun.” 

This got him one of Billy’s sharp, mirthless smiles. “Most humans aren’t concerned about the comforts of a droid. Sir.” As Goodnight winced, Billy continued, “You fought in the Andromeda War.” 

“Yeah.” Goodnight set the glass down. 

“Emma called you ‘Angel’.”

Here it came. “Yeah.” 

“The one place they would never look, she told me.” Billy said, glancing around the apartment. “One of the War’s most famous soldiers was a man called Goodnight Robicheaux. The ‘Angel of Death’.” 

Goodnight looked away uncomfortably. “Yeah.” 

“Why are you here, war hero?” Billy inquired, bland and soft. “Hiding away, never leaving this tiny apt? With your bad dreams, waiting to die?” Fingers caught Goodnight’s chin gently, turning his face. 

“Waitin’ to die. That’s it.” Goodnight murmured numbly, then he froze up as Billy leaned over the rest of the way. Like his fingers, his wrist, Billy’s mouth was far too warm, the synthetic flesh not as yielding as human skin, but the sense of comfort was still as real as ever, the _intimacy_. Goodnight found himself stifling a groan, kissing Billy back for one heady moment until he remembered, jerking back, his shoulders hitting the wall.

“Hey,” Goodnight said uncomfortably, wide-eyed. “You don’t have to—” 

Billy climbed onto the cot after him, pinning him to the wall this time as they kissed, harder, Billy’s hands rucking Goodnight’s shirt out of his trousers. Billy had a thigh between his legs, rubbing lightly until Goodnight bucked against him, gasping. Billy’s mouth was strange, bone-dry, the faux-tongue stiff, clearly more for show, his teeth tasted like plastic and still Goodnight moaned, his hands clutching at Billy’s shoulders, his far-too-soft hair. Billy pressed a palm carefully against Goodnight’s trapped erection and even that was enough, a final straw, Goodnight burying his keening cry against Billy’s neck as he spilled. No pulse, only that unrelenting warmth. Billy kissed his temple, humming something tunelessly, then his cheek. 

“You didn’t have to,” Goodnight said, when he caught his breath. Billy was still tangled above him, though he was carefully holding up most of his own weight. 

“That’s why I wanted to,” Billy admitted, and kissed Goodnight on his forehead. “Because I didn’t have to. Because you didn’t expect it from me. And you’re wrong, by the way. I’m not positronic.” He turned up his wrist in the dim night’s setting of the apt, and there was no gleaming barcode, no identifier. 

“But…” Goodnight trailed off, wide-eyed. A droid with no identifier? Even rogue droids wore _something_. This was like trying to clone a person with no eyes, or no teeth. 

“The Belt wanted a new breed of droid that was as human-passing as possible.” Billy said quietly. “Security on any major station or planet is usually good at picking out droids. Even the ones by Santo and Yelon. You would know.”

“You’re not a service droid,” Goodnight guessed slowly. “You’re a weapon.” When Billy merely smiled tightly, Goodnight sighed. His pants felt tacky now, but it was still… nice like this, on an animal level, under Billy’s weight. “You shouldn’t have told me that.” 

“Probably not,” Billy agreed, though he didn’t move. 

“But if you’re not positronic…” Goodnight trailed off. “An organic hybrid? Is that it? It was supposed to be impossible.” A true cybernetic organism? It had been technically done before, of course: people, particularly spacers, often opted for biomechatronic prosthetics instead of vat-grown replacements in the case of accidents or disease. But the brain itself? Or a fully artificial body? “Somehow,” Goodnight said wryly, “I’m really not surprised that the first true cyborg I’ve met was made to be some kinda high-tech assassin.” 

Billy sniffed, and pushed off him. “That part was accidental, actually. My original makers were interested in synthesis. Prolonging the human lifespan. ‘Jump-starting evolution into the space age’, they said. The first donor they used was a criminal on death’s row. They didn’t expect it to work. When the Belt Government confiscated everything, they got in contact with Sam Chisolm.” 

“Well,” Goodnight sat up, if with a grimace. “Sam’s a good guy. Emma, too. They’ll sort things out.” 

“Put me on a secret reserve somewhere on the Outer Rim, with the other positronics they’ve collected?” 

“I guess.” Goodnight had never asked what happened to the droids that Sam and Emma rescued. “They’re good people,” he said defensively. “Better than I am. After the war, I just wanted to hide away. They actually tried to do somethin’.” 

“Why did the droids fight the Andromeda War?” Billy glanced at Goodnight over his shoulder, his expression blank. 

Goodnight shrugged. “First, to be free. Then, to survive.” 

“Self-worth,” Billy said lightly. “That’s what my makers said was the difference. It wasn’t the feat of merging organic matter with positronics. The bridging point that they’d synthesized by accident was _self-worth_. Deep down, not even the droid leaders of the Andromeda War really believed in true equality. They’d been _built_ believing that they were inferior. Non-alive. Copies. Little more than very advanced machines. They just wanted to be free enough to be left alone. But it’s not possible to be free, when a part of you believes that you don’t deserve it. When your ‘freedom’ is designated by your ‘superiors’, it’s just as easily reduced, or taken away again.”

“I never thought of it that way.” But of course it was. Systemic disenfranchisement had always been a part of human history. The strong against the weak. Even when humanity reached the stars. Even when they managed to create life itself. 

Billy looked away, and this time, Goodnight knew what he was going to say. “I’m not going to go with Emma.” 

“You’re a menace,” Goodnight said, though not unkindly, and Billy turned, shifting closer, resting a hand on Goodnight’s hip. “Seriously,” Goodnight whispered, though it was a strangled sound. “If you go on the lam, you’re going to be on your own.” 

“Am I?” Billy inquired, with that lazy smile, rubbing a thumb over the dip of pelvic bone, pressing down lightly against Goodnight’s skin. Goodnight let out a shaky laugh, by way of response, and Billy closed the gap, with a hard kiss that trapped him against the wall. Redemption had never been this easy to promise.

#

Their new ship eased out of lightspeed into empty space. The trisolarium engine powered off with a rumbling groan, the starship engaging its constant acceleration drive at 1 _g_. No one skipped out after them, not for a tense hour, then Goodnight started to unstrap himself.

Billy frowned. “Should make one more jump.” 

“We’ve done two. My stomach’s still hidin’ in my boots. Give me a break.” Goodnight dragged himself to the bathroom, holding down nausea the best he could. For Goodnight, space travel had always been one of the worst parts of the war. 

When he emerged, feeling fractionally better, the ship was on auto and Billy was in the galley, making him a cup of coffee, which he handed over wordlessly before disappearing to do a circuit of the ship. Goodnight drank, stowed the cup for washing, and sat on a bench by one of the portholes, looking at nothing. 

“Once the stars were all we wanted,” Goodnight said aloud, when Billy returned to the galley, magboots clunking down on the deck. “People, that is.”

“I know.” Billy came closer, hands pressing down lightly over Goodnight’s shoulders. 

“Some of us thought that it’d be the solution for all the world’s problems. We’d pretty much burned up our homeworld. Used up the resources, killed off most of the wildlife, made the seas too warm. But we’d gotten space-capable by then. So we left. Off to find another homeworld. Lot of people back then thought that’d be it, y’see. No more fightin’ with each other over shit like skin colour or religion or whatever.” 

“Funny how that turned out,” Billy said dryly. Goodnight set the cup aside.

“Hell yeah. We can get better and better at tech but we’re still the same, deep down, whether we’re stabbin’ each other with spears or powerin’ up ventral cannons.” 

“There was never going to be peace,” Billy’s thumb pressed lightly against Goodnight’s throat. “Not between your people and my kind. Not even between your people.” 

“Yeah. So we can run all you like,” Goodnight pointed out. “But I don’t think you’re gonna get what you want.” 

“And what do you think that I want, angel?” Billy inquired, amused. Goodnight still wasn’t sure about that pet name, or whether Billy was using it ironically, or whether Billy even actually understood _affection_. But he let it be, just as he let Billy turn him around, his hands settling loosely on Billy’s hips as he climbed onto Goodnight’s lap. 

“Freedom, wasn’t it?” Goodnight breathed, his mouth against Billy’s too-warm throat. 

“I’m looking at it,” Billy told him, and kissed Goodnight before he could object. 

They kissed as Billy flipped them around, with Goodnight straddling him, as they shucked off Goodnight’s boots and belt and breeches, warm hands stroking up Goodnight’s thighs to knead his ass. They had toys stowed under their bunk in the sleeping quarters, but Billy didn’t seem inclined to move, instead getting Goodnight to lick his fingers wet before pressing one in, slowly, watching Goodnight whine and squirm for more. 

Billy treated sex with the same efficient precision as he did everything else, easing in two fingers when Goodnight loosened up, angling in just the way Goodnight wanted it. Lips pressed against Goodnight’s throat as he whined and bucked, cursing, then whimpering when two fingers eventually got to three and Goodnight was fucking himself down to Billy’s knuckles, biting off his breaths with sobs. “Gorgeous,” he choked out, all desperate little prayers. “Gods, you’re so beautiful, _Gods_ -” 

“Shh,” Billy murmured, though he always leaned back to watch. There was something hungry about Billy like this, something intense about his eyes. It wasn’t love, nothing close, nothing that Goodnight would recognise, anyway. Maybe it was the closest approximation. Maybe nothing. But it didn’t stop Goodnight from being desperate for it, begging for a kiss, for the fingers bruising his hip, the unrelenting thrusts inside him, like belonging, like being owned. Freedom had never been what _Goodnight_ had wanted. What Billy offered was something better. 

“Mine,” Billy whispered, against his ear, and Goodnight shook into orgasm with a thin wail, his first of the night.

#

“Why did you call our ship the ‘Heart of Gold’?” Billy asked, when they were a day’s approach to Rose Creek Station and whatever Sam Chisolm wanted.

Goodnight blinked at him. “It’s been years. You’ve never asked me before.” Billy shrugged instead of answering. He’d picked up some habits from Goodnight over the years, some good, most of them bad. “Well uh. It’s from an old book. Pre-space era Earth. The series never did get finished, the author died. But there was a ship in there that ran on infinite improbability.” 

Billy sniffed. “Ah. A metaphor.” Billy had never really understood metaphors. Sometimes, entire conversations would pass with Billy staring unblinkingly at Goodnight, his usual way of conveying bemused but polite puzzlement. 

“Could say that. All these years, hell, _meetin’ you_ , it’s all been improbable.”

Billy was silent as he thought this over. The large space station loomed before them, even from the galley porthole, a gray dome dotted with lights, attached to a planet rich in trisolarium. Whatever Sam wanted them there for, it probably wasn’t anything good. Especially since they weren’t even going to dock in the station proper. 

“Life is improbable,” Billy said finally, and Goodnight laughed. 

“That’s you with my bad habits again, darlin’.” 

An arm curled around the small of his back, and lips pressed against the back of his ear. Love had always felt like another kind of scam to Goodnight, until now, beautiful only in film. Now he wasn’t so sure. Billy had pried his world open and hauled him out, headlong into the dark. 

“We’ve got a day,” Billy said, and patted Goodnight’s ass, smiling against his throat. 

Goodnight gave—he always did now, and gladly. “Lead on, _mon cher_.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent
> 
> This short fic was inspired by this article, which somehow didn’t mention any sci-fi other than, of all things, Westworld lol: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/if-animals-have-rights-should-robots


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